Touring - What Size Are Your Touring Chainrings?

Most stock touring bikes come with something in the range of 30/42/52 which is not good for touring with heavy loads, so I'm curious. What does everyone ride?

I've a Shimano Ultegra 172.5 crankset, 24(generic)/38/48 TA rings on mine. I've it paired with an 11/32 cassette. For my next tour (oh when, oh when will it be?) I'll allmost certainly swap out the cassette for one of Sheldon Brown's custom ones (or make my own).

46/38/26 with a 13-26 8sp rear. I have never used the 26 front.

24/36/46 XTR
11-32 XTR
28" DT-Swiss rims
1.75" Continental top touring tires

I use all my gears, all the time, chose them like this and am realy happy about this setting.
I must say I am relly heavy (240pounds) and use the bike for touring with 45pound of lugadge

in my first touring experinence I had

30/40/52 Tiagra
12-28 Tiagra
28" mavic
1,25" continental toutouring
I walked alot and was in the first gear alot


I want to say that the size of the wheels and the size of the tires matters also
I you calculate (I love excel) you will find out thar between a
26" wheel with 1" tires and a
28" wheel with 1,75" tires
there is 11% differance

same as 46 big chainwheel and a 52 one (51,75)

I had my LBS switch out the stock 105 52/42/30 for a Deore mountain crankset on my new Trek 520. What a difference!! I now fell as though I can climb anything!!!

Hope this helps.

Dan

I've got a 48-36-26 with an 11-32. This replaced the 52-42-30 that came on with it. Got mine at the local bike shop at their cost, since they had ordered it and then turned out that person didn't want it.

Steve
Who is getting ready to go riding

22-32-44 with 12-32 cassette.

48/38/24 with a 11-34 for loaded touring. And so far we have been able to climb any hill we have found

175mm Suntour XC LTD crank with 46/36/24, either a 11-28 or 12-32 8spd cassette on my bike with 26" wheels. That gives me a low gear inch of about 19.5" if I need it.

Walking a heavy touring bike up a steep grade isn't fun and doing so usually makes for a wider obstacle for passing vehicles. I'll gladly take my top gear of about 100" to get that granny gear. If I'm going on a tour that stays out of the mountains I throw on the 11-28 cassette.

Cheers,

Ron
Wasatch Mountain Range, Utah
Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine x2 in 3 days.
Our Touring Journals (http://miles2go.crazyguyonabike.com/)
The excellent website we use for our journals is having a rare problem. Hopefully the owner gets it fixed inside of three days.

XT 170mm cranks with 22/32/44 chainrings and 12-34 9sp cassette. I usually go through all the chainrings.

46-36-24 up front and 11 x 32 (9 sp) in back.

thanks for all the respones so far!

48-36-26 with an 11-32 in the back. I may go to a 24 tooth chain ring and a 11-34 cassette someday.

44-34-22 with 12-14-15-16-17-19-21-25-34 custom cassette

The tandem has 48-38-28-18 with 12-15-16-17-18-20-23-26-32

XT 9 Speed 22-32-44, 175mm, 11-34. I recently returned from an 11 day tour of Prince-Edward Island and with a loaded bike, I never used the 44 chainring but used the 22 everytime there were hills to climb.

Crank: 24-36-48
9-speed cassette: 12-34

For me, this is an almost "perfect" set-up for lightweight touring. I use the entire range of gears.

If I were to do it again, I would see whether I could substitute a 22 for the 24 on the crank. On gruelling climbs on high mountain passes, extremely steep hills, in headwinds, or when I am tired, no granny gear is small enough.

Nevertheless, my current set-up is excellent. Last summer it got me over the Alps.

52/28 as I recall. Stock was something like 52/38 I can not recall for sure as it been more than 20 years since I swapped out the smal ring.

I plan on going to a three ring set soon with index shifting if I can find a set that will fit a Super Le Tour.

Joe

LX crank with 44/32/22
11-32 cassette

I've never needed anything lower than a 32x32, and only for a short stretch. But I haven't really hit the hills with a full load yet.

44/32/22 with a 13 - 34 Cyclotouriste Cassette from Sheldon Brown. The cassette is very nice because it gives you very evenly spaced gears. It's not uncommon to be pedaling along quite comfortably, shift up a gear and continue along just as comfortably but even faster.

~Jamie N
www.bicycletouring101.com

22-32-44 chained to a 12-34 rear cassette seems to do the trick for my fully loaded rig. There were a few times however on my last years tour that I wanted lower gears. Missouri Ozarks in 95 degree temps and the California coast after 5000 miles and some muscle mass loss from not eating enough.

48-38-28 with a 12-25 cassette. I practice light weight principles even when 'fully loaded' so I'll never have more than 20 lbs of gear.

FSA 53/39/24 crank, 12-34 cassette, 9 speed. I use it for offroad also.

42-32-22 and 11-32, 8 speed.
With 35kg of gear and can still climb almost any hill.

I rode a 48/38/24 crank (changed the stock 30 to a 24) and an 11-34 cassette on my Cannondale T800 on the two tours I've used it on. I've since changed it to a Race Face Turbine LP with a 44/34/20. I spin out faster going to work but I do appreciate the lower gears. It's much closer to the mountain bikes I ride then to a road bike.

I still haven't switched out of my 52-42-30 on the Bianchi, and I do heavy loaded stuff in a pretty wavy landscape most of the time. It stinks though. My smallest gear is 29 inches, which really isnt *that* bad, but I want smaller.

Building the new tourer right now. This winter is going to be fun, watching parts attach themselves to the frame every month, bit by bit as I save the money to buy them.

I put my touring bike together with old stuff laying around. It's a friction 7-speed setup with bar ends.

24/39/52 on 175 arms
14-34

I've been in low gear several times, even once in a city that looked as flat as a pancake. Then in the middle there was this little hill on the Bike Route that was over 20%. With 35 lbs of load, and 5 days on the road, low gear was JUST enough.

I will say that it was somewhat difficult to ride with people who had standard (??) touring bikes because they wanted to ride at 16 mph and I found 14 or 15 about right with my gears. 16 was too fast for one gear and too slow for another. It was really irritating. After a couple of days when I got stronger and they got weaker I returned the favor by riding at 17 mph in the faster gear which put them in the same sort of hurt as I had been in for the first couple of days.

Neener, neener, neeeeeeeener.

The moral of this story is that a 9-speed touring setup is probably better if you intend to ride with other people. It's hard to compromise on your usual cadence so you need enough gears to be able to find the one that you all can ride comfortably in. And this could turn into a real issue if the tour is extended.

Hey Stuart if you find a hill you can't climb with that 16 inch gear then please let me know where it is! :D If I put those rings on my Thorn I'd have a 15 inch granny. INCONCEIVABLE :p

BTW, is avitar photo of you on one of the Denver bike paths? I'd been to Denver 3 times before I realized they were there.

:beer:




I rode a 48/38/24 crank (changed the stock 30 to a 24) and an 11-34 cassette on my Cannondale T800 on the two tours I've used it on. I've since changed it to a Race Face Turbine LP with a 44/34/20. I spin out faster going to work but I do appreciate the lower gears. It's much closer to the mountain bikes I ride then to a road bike.

I'm not so sure I can even stay upright pushing 15 inches.......unless I'm on a trike.. :D

48-32-22 front
11-13-15-17-20-23-26-30-34 back

16 to 107 gear inches

Not toured yet, though, but if all goes as planned, I will next summer.

Hey Stuart if you find a hill you can't climb with that 16 inch gear then please let me know where it is! :D If I put those rings on my Thorn I'd have a 15 inch granny. INCONCEIVABLE :p

BTW, is avitar photo of you on one of the Denver bike paths? I'd been to Denver 3 times before I realized they were there.

:beer:

It ain't the hill, it's the lack of oxygen. I could have used something like that when I did Trail Ridge Road a number of years ago, although there were hills in Sioux City, Iowa that a 16" granny would have been handy ;)

The photo is a self portrait on the Katy Trail in Missouri after nearly 900 miles of very lonely riding. It was a hot day outside of Booneville.

Haven't toured (with this bike) yet but running this config:

20" wheels (40-406mm, folding bike).
52/42 Stainless Steel Biopace rings up front.
11-34 8-speed cassette rear.

Result: approx. 23 to 88 gear-inch range. Higher would be nice for downhill stretches but I can't imagine going much lower on the gearing - I'm practically at a walking speed if I'm on the 34T cog!

In my opinion, you can never have too low a gear.
I have come across a few hills (though very short) where even my lowest, 16", felt heavy and slow, but even then, the speed would be 5-7 km/h, which is a fast walking pace on flat ground. You'll be faster on a bike almost no matter how low the gear is, compared to walking.

For credit card touring only, I've speced a TA Zephur 50/36/26 with a 12/25 9 speed cassette which has prooven to be a great do-everything setup. Although I've seldom had to use the 26 tooth granny, it's sure nice to know I've got a wall climber in back when I need it. When I finally take the plunge into loaded tours, I can always swap out the cassette for something even lower.

Sam in Cincy

44/34/22 with an 11-34 cassette.

44/11 is more then enough gear inches to handle 30mph at a 90ish cadence.

And the 22/34 will climb walls.

TruVativ Firex, 26/36/48, 11-32 cassette

It ain't the hill, it's the lack of oxygen.

+1 - it was much easier when I lived in NM at 8500 ft!

24-36-48 with a 12-34 cassette which gives 19 to 108 gear inches

Another nice set up is 20-34-46 with an 12-27 which gives a similar gear range, but the
gear progression is more linear

50/44/28. The 50 is fine, though I don't use it very much. The 44 is stupid-big, but I haven't ever gotten around to replacing it. I'm thinking something around 38 teeth would be nice. The 28 is nice, but a 26 would perfect.

When I toured on this bike this summer, it had a 14-28 six-speed freewheel. I was okay with the top gear, but the bottom just wasn't low enough. In October, I upgraded to a 13-34 seven-speed Megarange hyperglide freewheel, and I am much happier with this set-up. The top is as high as I will ever need (up to 104 from 97 inches) and my low low gear is now a thing of beauty, at 22 inches. I just need to get around the changing that middle chainring. It sounds like the gears would be too widely spaced, but the last cog before the 34 is a 24, so the spacing is pretty good for my main cruising gears.

REI Randonee

Was 30/42/52 with 11-30 cassette, Now 22/32/44 with same cassette. The change was a vast improvement.

Just switch out a Ultegra triple to a custom set Sugino AT with Raceface rings (48/34/24/) with 12-32 in the rear. I hope thus the right combination haven't used is it yet

I am sure this will sound silly, but how do you know how many teeth are on the chainring? Do you actually count them?

I just discovered I have a Biopace thingie on the front.

</techie> ;)

52-42-26 with 11-32 cassette on my loaded Fuji touring on recent across-US trip. I didn't ever feel I needed any lower, but found the gap between chainrings a bit big.

Not sure how everyone else is measuring inches--and I may not be correct in this--but, I'm keeping the 12-27 10-spd cog, which is the biggest that currently is available (maybe SRAM makes a 28T 10-spd cog). However, I am soon to go with a 26-36-48 mtb crank. I wanted a one-to-one (1:1) and 26:27 is close--about 0.95.

Accordingly, a 1:1, using pie*diameter or about 27" times 3.14 would be about 85 inches for each turn of the cranks. That puts my low at about 81" and I will have about 17 well-spaced gears of the 30 with an average step of about 15 inches.

:)

Maybe someone can explain something to me...

Why would anyone (other than a racer who's in a pelaton most of the time - and thus needs really tight gear steps) want to have 12 or 13 teeth as the smallest rear gear rather than 11?

The way I figure it, as a tourer, you end up needing a 48 or 52 large chainring to get the high end gear inches you can get with the 44/11 combo.

And that limits what your granny ring can be - assuming you don't like chainslack.

Not sure how everyone else is measuring inches

Chainring cog / cassette cog * Wheel diameter.. yes?

Chainring cog / cassette cog * Wheel diameter.. yes?

The wheel circumference--not diameter--or, dia. * pie, no?

Nope... definitely not * pi.

Remember now, gear inches are simply a way to express a bicycle's "speed" compared to an equivalent penny farthing

PF's were marketed by wheel diameter.

I use actual wheel diameter, not nominal.
Thus, my nominal 26" wheels are 24.5", and a set of narrow 700c wheels are almost exactly 26".

48 / 11 * 24.5 ~ 107
22 / 34 * 24.5 ~ 16

I use actual wheel diameter, not nominal.
Thus, my nominal 26" wheels are 24.5", and a set of narrow 700c wheels are almost exactly 26".

48 / 11 * 24.5 ~ 107
22 / 34 * 24.5 ~ 16

Well, I suppose if you really want to get technical, you'd need to actually be on the bike and then have someone measure the diameter.

But it really doesn't matter. It's only a comparative number.
And as long as all agree on the methodology, it works.

Well, I suppose if you really want to get technical, you'd need to actually be on the bike and then have someone measure the diameter.


True, but that makes the measurement rider-dependant. Technically accurate, but useless for comparisons.